Jolt
by Silberias
Summary: Sherlock knows a few things. His brother is lying, there is someone missing (possibly dead), and that these things are somehow Sherlock's fault. In the background there is also Molly Hooper, who stays.
1. Chapter 1

And finally we see Sherlock's point of view through the events of Zapped.

Enjoy!

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He knew that in the precious two seconds he had as he fell that there was no way to contact Molly to say sorry to her for dying in such a stupid manner. The color of her eyes was even wiped away in the cold realization that there was no surviving the distance he'd fallen. Humans were only built to fall from just a little above their own height. Sherlock shut his eyes just before his body smashed to the flooring below him. There was no heaven where he would meet Molly Hooper ever again.

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	2. Chapter 2

And finally we see Sherlock's point of view through the events of Zapped.

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He started out with holding her hand. It was warm, and roughly the same hand he'd once held. Sherlock marveled that she'd waited five years for him, staring at her as she dozed against his shoulder. It might have been confusing for someone else, but he could easily overlay his missing decade with her missing half. There had long been the suspicion that Mycroft was hiding something or someone from him, but it was too well hidden—no written documents and faceless lackeys did the trick. He had been too addled from his injury early on to properly gather the evidence that he could have used against his brother to bring Molly back to him.

A fiancée, a woman he'd asked to be his wife for _years_ before she'd finally agreed—disappeared. Though, in an ounce of fairness to Mycroft—Molly _had_ asked, had begged. She had wanted him to be free. Not of her, but of obligation he couldn't remember. She loved him enough to give him that. There was no fault, either, in not wanting to fight with that awful human being he'd been when they first met. That time right after he'd woken from the coma was fuzzy, and always had been, but he must have just been terrible to her. Sherlock had already glanced through the main events, seen that Molly had dropped all of her plans—and that meant job applications, interviews, family trips, finding a flat for them to share somewhere in London—and spent her time religiously at the hospital while his traitor brain had been busily erasing her entirely. Such a poor way to repay her, it twisted his heart.

Molly was hesitant even now, he could tell, that this was somehow an act or that he would relapse and forget her once again. He half wanted to ask, _demand_, that if he did relapse that she force him to stay with her—have Mycroft force him to stay with her. Molly would ignore it, though, and Mycroft wouldn't push her otherwise. All Sherlock could do was let her curl up to his side in the car for most of the long ride up to Scotland.

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	3. Chapter 3

This story isn't going to be as detailed as Zapped because I can't get into Sherlock's head the way I was able to once upon a time. I don't know the cause of this, though I'll try rewatching the series to see if that helps. Eh. But here you go, chapter three. more like chapter two though if you ask me.

Enjoy!

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For just one instant, it felt like home when he finally blinked himself awake. The warmth of the body next to him was welcome and relaxing, something he was used to—and then he'd realized that there was no reason for him to be cuddled so nicely, and that there wasn't anyone in particular he even _wanted_ to cuddle with. Once his eyes were open—hospital room, private, Mycroft's doing—he decided to get the person off him in the most efficient way. Being accusatory and defensive weren't the nicest, perhaps, but Sherlock didn't knock things that worked.

Her shock at his behavior was palpable.

Well that did it. He was never, ever, going to try cocaine again. Ending up in hospital with a clingy nurse sleeping at his side, a nurse who claimed she wasn't one despite it being obvious from the careworn look of her sleepy eyes and the gentle firmness of her hands as she handled things. It just wasn't worth it.

Mycroft hadn't helped—telling him not to go running in buildings without backup. Backup for what? He'd asked about the nurse and was rewarded with a roll of the eyes and a scoff.

"That's your fiancée, Sherlock. You're getting married in April you lout. Though she has cared for you through your addictions and your recent injury, she is hardly your nurse." Mycroft looked older as he spoke—as though he'd aged ten years at least since Sherlock had last seen him. It was bizarre—more effects of the cocaine? He didn't recall taking enough to hallucinate, though he kept his face stony in the face of his double-shock. The idea of a fiancée, and how wrong he'd been about the drugs.

His elder brother's expression faded from holier-than-thou to horror over just a few short seconds. No more than two, if Sherlock had been counting.

"You don't remember, do you?"

"Obviously not—you mean that pathetic woman from earlier thinks she's getting _married_ to me?"

Mycroft turned thunderous in his mood then.

"Only because she is the sweetest woman you will ever meet, Sherlock, did she _agree_ to marry you when you proposed just outside of your _rehab clinic_ on the day of your releas—"

"You can't tell me I would ever ask a mouse like that to _marry_ me. Mycroft, she can barely stand up under the weight of her own being, you aren't being serious with me!"

They had _such_ a row after that, and Sherlock's head ached with the effort of shouting—and listening to shouting. He had stubbornly shut his eyes eventually and ignored Mycroft until he left. Behind closed eyelids he reviewed everything he knew about the woman Mycroft insisted he was engaged to. Maybe Mycroft had somehow meant that the woman was engaged to himself rather than Sherlock? Unable to reason properly through his now pounding headache, Sherlock drifted off to sleep.

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	4. Chapter 4

Thank you to Kathmak and RenaissanceBookLover108 for basically pointing out something that would be very lacking in this chapter and lead to confusion. You don't know it, but you actually kind of saved the chapter from being just a 100 word filler stub.

Enjoy!

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There was a woman at his side, knitting with a mediocre amount of skill—a recent habit then—and humming softly to herself. Sherlock watched her out of barely opened eyes for a few minutes, baffled when she reached out a hand towards his own as though to take it. Whatever he'd taken at that party he vowed to never take it again—hallucinations were _not_ his favorite. Very much the opposite.

The woman didn't actually touch his hand though, biting her lip and going back to the knitting. Sherlock soon fell back asleep, a dull ache winding its way through his head. He couldn't for the life of him remember why he would be in hospital other than perhaps an overdose of some sort. Drugs were apparently not to be in his repertoire of in-depth experiences if this was where he landed after his first attempt.

Sherlock didn't remember these thoughts, or the woman at his bedside, the next time he woke up. He met Mycroft's eyes instead and felt shame well up through him. One party, one time being recreational with the drugs passed around, and he wound up in hospital. And his head was aching. His elder brother explained to him gently that he'd been there for some time. He'd hit his head while out on a case.

He'd been living with Mycroft's family for the last several years. He had no one in his life except for them. He was a detective—a _consulting_ detective. Mycroft twitched a wry smile at that—_coined it yourself, I do believe. _

Sherlock remembered only bits and pieces of this conversation the next time he awoke, and Mycroft was once again at his side. His brother was patient with him as he relayed the information again. And again the next time Sherlock regained consciousness. Mycroft repeated the story until it was stuck in Sherlock's brain and he was able to recall it in detail. The doctors all said that what had been lost was lost unless some sort of shock happened to the brain that caused it to start to remember. One physician had joked that it was as though his brain had deleted the last eight or ten years of his life—Sherlock rather liked that terminology, and made a mental note to keep it with him. There was no need for the detritus he'd lost, he decided, and there was no need to being collecting it again.

Though he was still fuzzy sometimes, he willingly got in the car with Mycroft and went to the little house his brother had feathered for himself in the last decade.

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	5. Chapter 5

If you'll remember from Zapped, Sherlock didn't remember things from day to day when he first woke up from his coma. And that he later told Molly he was quite suspicious of his brother's words.

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He'd grown to accept, over the last few weeks, Mycroft's tale as _mostly_ true. There were dots of needle scars along his inner arms and the delicate skin inside his nose was damaged in a manner consistent with prolonged cocaine use. He'd gotten strange looks from his sister-in-law (_sister-in-law?!_) when he asked for coffee, but she'd given it to him readily enough. It was deeply invigorating to sip it, as though he hadn't indulged in a long time. There wasn't a word from either Elaine or Mycroft about it, but Sherlock had a deep suspicion that he'd given up coffee and other stimulants along with the drugs.

Mycroft said that Sherlock had been staying with them for the most part, sometimes spending a night or two at Mummy's. The room looked like something he would have decorated, and it had some clothing and possessions that were obviously his own. But he had never lived in it. The bed was that hard sort of new—meaning it was barely slept in, so he tossed and turned at night trying to break it in properly—the hangers in the closet were new, the glass of the window having the very slightest layer of dust on it meaning the curtains were kept drawn much of the time which was exactly against his habit of leaving shutters, curtains, and windows open as much as possible. The smell on the fabric of his clothing at first wasn't the same as the scented laundry soap that Elaine used, either. At first he thought he'd imagined it—small details like that were hard to remember properly at first, but his brain was steadily recovering from the fall he'd taken and he was just about completely sure about the laundry soap.

In the bag of clothing left for him at the hospital was a green scarf. Handmade, simple with a few lumps—a beginner's effort—but without any special scents or markings to indicate the provenance. He liked it, but it made him feel strange to wear it. Elaine would purse her lips when she saw him wearing it as though she disapproved but when he asked her she would deny anything being the matter.

His brother was covering something up, something big. Almost everyone around him seemed to be waiting for him to remember something of his missing years, but he continued to fail them. Their continued silence, the scarf, and the laundry soap told him everything he thought he needed to know. There had been someone in his life, and his recklessness the night of his injury had cost them their life somehow. Mycroft wanted to remove any guilt that might rest on Sherlock's conscience and covered up the death.

This answer didn't quite sit right with Sherlock but it was the only one he had at the moment.

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	6. Chapter 6

Because Sherlock would of course do this.

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He found he was intrigued by the idea of being a detective. Forensic pathology had been a certain form of it, and going out looking for clues other than those provided by the body was just adding a flavorful dash of legwork to the job. Sherlock found he quite enjoyed it. Though he would never admit to this, he was also thankful for Mycroft pulling strings at Barts to get Sherlock access there. He had wanted to work at Barts for as long as he could remember, and it felt like home as soon as he stepped through the doors.

There was also the wickedly intelligent new pathologist, Molly Hooper. She was wonderfully intent on her job and she would smile fondly at the corpses she was in charge of. There was no judgment in her for how they died, no judgment over whatever she found during her autopsies. Whatever conclusions could be drawn about them from her work made her happy. He thought she was rather pretty, as well.

Sherlock found her quite beautiful the first day he met her, but of course he put his foot in his mouth by seeing and saying too much of her life without thinking about it. She had on an engagement ring—on a chain, kept tucked under her blouse—and that mixed with how tired she looked when she thought he wasn't looking at her, well...

"You've lost someone recently. Someone close to you." He tried to word it as tactfully as possible. It wasn't his best, but Sherlock didn't think that it was the worst observation he'd ever voiced. The pathologist, Molly Hooper, looked like she was about to cry for a moment but composed herself enough so that her voice didn't waver too much as she spoke.

"About two months ago, yes. He's gone—um, we, we were going to get married. Not now, obviously." Her voice was tiny and trailing at the end of her sentence and Sherlock thought long and hard about his next move. She was likely still grieving, but maybe going out for coffee once in a while might not be so bad for her. After he'd begun waking up in the hospital having remembered the previous day, Sherlock had felt like there was something missing in his life. It would make Mycroft and Elaine frown to see him moving on, but he needed to. They had removed any means he had of grieving over the person on his own, so the next step was to find someone new.

Something about Molly Hooper was comforting. Maybe it was the fact that he'd spent only a few hours in her lab and already knew where she kept everything, or maybe it was that she seemed eager to be near him despite her obvious sadness.

She was staring at nothing just beyond his shoulder and he realized he'd let the silence lapse longer than most people felt to be normal.

"Well, best not to dwell. He probably wouldn't want you to—Heaven knows that if the situation were reversed he would be moving on by now." There. Sherlock felt a moment of accomplishment on his pronouncement. He acknowledged her loss, he told her hope springs eternal-la-dee-da-dee-da, and in a sense told her to move on _with him_. This was going to work splendidly.

Molly's reaction was quite different than he'd anticipated.

"Get out. Get out now, Sherlock Holmes…"she was pushing him, her hands small but strong on his arm and back. "Out, out, out. You can come back later when Mike's here. Get out get out get out." She'd started shouting and was close to tears by the time she slammed the door to the lab in his face, leaving Sherlock dumbstruck out in the hallway.

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	7. Chapter 7

In which Sherlock tries to root out his past and finds that Mycroft has been MORE than thorough.

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He didn't remember anything but Baker Street, and a woman named Maggie Hudson. She hugged him with surprising familiarity when he knocked on her door—_let me look at you! Oh your hair is just mangled, though I suppose they must have needed to look at your head after—well!_— but when she pulled away her mouth twisted in the same way Elaine's did. Mycroft was extremely good at finding every loose end and tying it up neatly, and apparently even this woman that Sherlock shouldn't have even remembered had been tidied. He didn't let his disappointment show on his face, though, instead awkwardly asking how they'd met. He hoped that maybe whatever cover story his brother's people had invented might be a little shaky with a woman of Mrs. Hudson's age.

What he got instead was a flat—a quick call to Mycroft soon had a year's lease paid for in advance—and a landlady who treated him like a second son. He filled the flat with his things and then set about looking for a flatmate. He did not want to spend all of his time in the place by himself and seeing as Molly Hooper wasn't quite ready to move on—which was a damn shame but he forced himself to respect boundaries in this oen case—he needed to look elsewhere than Barts. He certainly wasn't going to ask the other pathologist, Stamford, to move in with him.

His flat had come with the stipulation from Mycroft that he turn his mind towards occasional mysteries that his older brother didn't have time to contemplate and solve. He both resented and appreciated this—surely he had supported himself before his accident? Why else had there been the pretense invented that he'd been living with Mycroft and Elaine, and why had their children been sent away to school in such a hurry when the house still bore marks that they'd lived there full time only months ago? Children couldn't quite be trusted to maintain a cover story, and it was best for Mycroft's smoke and mirrors that they not be present at all to present such a weakness.

Sherlock kept his resentment at his brother simmering in the back of his mind. He wanted to know who he had been before he'd fallen, he wanted to move towards being a man in his thirties rather than trapped in with the racing thoughts of a twenty something and the easiest way of doing this would be to force himself to accept the life he'd had. If he knew what he'd lost he might someday grasp the weight of it—but at the moment he had been grabbing at moonbeams for nearly six months. Whatever his life before had been, whatever might be missing from it now that he'd apparently accidentally gotten someone killed—he wanted it. He wanted to look at it like a biography of someone important that he should know things about.

This wasn't possible because of Mycroft's actions, and that made Sherlock irrationally angry.

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	8. Chapter 8

Okay so all of the chapters have been rather short. Which means that I really have to apologize because the one after this is a doozy. But I feel like it has to be, and it's also really the only chapter that Sherlock has really let me know what's going on in his head at all. I've just been going a million miles an hour in my day to day life that it's been really hard to write recently. At least, write on any of my plots. Argh.

Well that's enough whining. Here's some more Sherlock being a dolt.

Enjoy!

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Molly Hooper was, awfully enough, the only pathologist who put up with him. Stamford ran—outright _ran_—at the sight of him most days, and the techs couldn't stand whatever criticisms he muttered at them. Molly however stayed at his side. She still wore the necklace with the engagement ring on it, and the only thing that kept him from asking her out for coffee was the fact that when he flirted with her occasionally she would touch where it lay under her blouse.

Sherlock could admire her loyalty, but it was annoying. He wanted to ask her out, wanted to take her home to Baker Street and have his way with her. But she was living somewhere in the past that he was trying desperately not to pry into. Instead of waiting for her to get over her dead fiancé, Sherlock threw this need to connect with her, this need to have her—this _energy_ into his work. As time went on this became easier and easier but sometimes he dreamed. He dreamed of an anonymous little flat—of course he knew 221B was far too dramatic and overbearing for her tastes which ran towards light blue and yellow for wallpaper and mismatched mugs instead of teacups would be in the cabinets—and Molly would be standing in one of his shirts from uni and her socks.

Her hip would balance on the counter as she sucked on her teeth and watched the sausages or bacon fry up. She would settle into his arms, though, tucking her cheek to rest on his chest while his hands snaked around her waist and from there south. The conviction that he'd led to someone's death—someone _female_—was proved because he knew how a woman's bare bum felt through an old cotton tee, how her hair and skin smelled. There hadn't been anyone to share lazy mornings like he dreamed of, dreamed with such reality that Sherlock sometimes woke up in a sweat, unless of course they'd been there with him in that misty period of years that he'd lost.

When he woke up, covers thrown to the floor and shirt soaked through, Sherlock would gingerly run his fingertips along the scarring that his hair concealed. He'd cracked his skull in his fall, and it was a miracle according to everyone around him that he hadn't also snapped his neck or his back. The fact that he'd lived rather than died from the swelling on his brain was also wondrous. The cost had been high, though. Lestrade still sometimes looked at him sadly when the man thought Sherlock wasn't watching.

He was better able to repress it as time went by though. Molly was at his elbow, and that was enough at least until she gave up on the man who'd died on her. He didn't know when that would be, but he could wait.

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	9. Chapter 9

I think I managed to split this into some nicer chunks. It was quite a bit bigger originally. Like, the 2000 word range. It annoys me when authors don't have chapters that are mostly the same size. It just does.

This means, however, that we are going to be stuck with Christmas for a little longer than might be pleasant. You'll of course see that Sherlock didn't find Christmas pleasant in the least.

Enjoy!

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He was deeply hurt when Molly finally did move on—with someone other than himself. He knew it was childish to assume that he deserved her affection after waiting for her to grieve properly. Well no, he knew it was the behavior of a bastard no one should want to date. But the simple fact that she was using the man to rub it in his face—_I have someone and he isn't you_. That was cruel. If he was supposed to have picked up on some signal from her she should know by now what got his attention and what didn't. He pointedly ignored the feeling that perhaps she had given him some signal, that she'd given him the exact information he thought he needed, that he'd just been in the midst of a case and had glossed over it. It generated a low-level of panic.

So Sherlock was cruel to Jim from IT in a way that only Molly would hear or fully understand. He destroyed Jim "from IT" from the shoes up and voiced his pain that she was happy and that he'd missed it. Although he missed so much more of that confrontation than he should have though. Jim "from IT" Moriarty had been testing him. The man knew far too much about Sherlock to have missed that Molly was Sherlock's only close female acquaintance—he was putting Sherlock's affection for her on trial. After meeting the "consulting criminal," he had been glad of his reaction and his words to the man. If the one person who saw Sherlock's affection for Molly believed themselves to be in error it would protect the woman. Sherlock _still _didn't know who he'd lost, thanks to Mycroft's meddling, but he refused to lose a second person by bringing them too close to his cases.

Molly wouldn't speak to him for weeks but she'd picked up on his jealousy. She continued using his affections against him—flirting in the hallways and starting to have lunch dates with what appeared to be every MD in the building. Sherlock was confused and frustrated with her but managed to ignore it for a few more months. They needed to live their own lives, and he needed to stop hoping. Hoping to figure out how to ask her out himself, hoping that she didn't get attached to someone else in the meantime. It was like shaking up baking soda and vinegar for Sherlock. In fact, he managed to keep it all bottled up—and some of _it_ being the fact that after months and months he couldn't seem to summon the right words to speak to her of inane things like feelings. His feelings. It was an inability which infuriated him—until Christmas Eve.

On Christmas Eve it turned from anger to horror and it was all his fault.

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	10. Chapter 10

I think I managed to split this into some nicer chunks. It was quite a bit bigger originally. Like, the 2000 word range. It annoys me when authors don't have chapters that are mostly the same size. It just does.

Two/three more bits of Sherlock's thoughts on Christmas. He still doesn't remember Molly, although that is coming soon. And he has awkward times when he finally does realize it (I've actually changed where he does so, sorry Zapped purists...!) and things happen. Yes.

Enjoy!

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It had been a horrible day that led up to that horrible night when he ruined it all.

He'd woken up from a nightmare—The Woman, Irene Adler, had him bound up tight quite against his will and was photographing him. He'd disliked photographs up until that horrid hat photo had been adopted by the press as his signature look and now he despised them entirely. He had tried to steer the dream away to the pleasant mornings he spent in the crampt little flat he'd never seen before. He'd tried to go to Molly but The Woman followed him there and had wrapped herself around him as Molly turned from the stove to face him. Her little mouth pinched in hurt and tears rolled down her cheeks as he felt The Woman's hot breath in his ear saying evil nothings that set his teeth on edge. Sherlock hoped that he hadn't yelled himself awake, but he feared he might have. His flatmate had given him funny looks all morning.

Said flatmate had then dragged him around town doing last minute shopping. They were having a party—John claimed he'd informed him of this but Sherlock quite failed to recall the conversation—and it was customary to have some small gifts for all the guests. For an early Christmas, John said with a jaunty little smile. Ah. New girlfriend then. He made a mental note to ask John just how he did it—how a short, if still quite fit, man with graying hair, a terrible home-life, and a touch of hardly-treated PTSD managed to attract far more than his share of women. Perhaps first he would work on some better words for that question, John would frown at the current litany.

Mrs. Hudson had had John's help, early that afternoon, with manhandling him into an antler hat so as to pose with her for her Christmas photos. Her children hadn't come home for Christmas with their own mother and so he and John played her surrogates. They'd had to redo the picture several times—one of them would blink, Sherlock wouldn't be smiling satisfactorily, Mrs. Hudson worried the colors were off, and several other excuses. A dozen or so photographs, this time these ones being real and that much more loathsome. What was everyone's obsession with putting him in hats?! It had thankfully ended soon enough once he'd _actually_ cooperated—and when they had a good copy, Mrs. Hudson slipped away to hide her camera and start the tea. Sherlock whipped the hat off nearly as soon as her back was turned and then he'd taken it to her small garden and buried it under the snow. Hopefully the elderly woman wouldn't find it until the spring rain had thoroughly ruined the thing.

He would like that. Deeply.

Especially since Mrs. Hudson and John forced him to help them decorate the flat after he refused to have any tea with them. The fairy lights were a nice touch, and the fire in the hearth was pleasant and they eventually let him fiddle with his violin in the corner rather than interact. He needed it. The day was too much and he was sure that he would have nightmares tonight as he had last night. The Woman upset his mind too much and made him crave something that would either keep him awake—his veins whispered _cocaine_ at him on this train of thought—or put him into plain unconsciousness. Just because he didn't consciously remember his drug use didn't mean his body chemistry had forgotten it. He would probably have to smoke for the rest of his life just for the fact that his body and brain liked nicotine a hair more than they did cocaine—he would always be an addict to something.

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	11. Chapter 11

Sorry for no updates. Life happened.

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Sherlock focused on playing people's requests as Lestrade arrived followed by John's girlfriend. He smiled as pleasantly as he could but when the guests settled in over drinks he started to itch for silence and solitude. It was three quarters of the way down this slide in his mental patience for the party that Molly Hooper arrived. His breath caught for only a moment—she was lovely. If he was any other man he would have stared at her long and hard before everything clicked into place, but he was Sherlock Holmes. He could see more with a careless glance than most could only see with singularly focused study.

It was Christmas and she barely knew most of the people here—she was just stopping by for a drink and to drop off presents before going on to whatever celebration she'd been invited to by someone she wanted to impress. Sherlock could see of no other reason she would wear such an outfit and seem so flustered—so uncomfortable and ready to leave while wearing an outfit that left every man in the room devastated. If he'd felt welcome at her home he would have been acting the exact same way while wearing his favorite get-up—eager to show himself and his affection off. In that case, though, he would be eager not to leave himself but for everyone to find another flat to spend Christmas Eve.

The nice thing about being himself is that he could be a jerk—could be _mean_—under the guise of deducing things. He could claim the inability to turn off his gift and people wouldn't usually slap him for his words. And if they did he could deal with a slap to the face much easier than he could a face-full of wine. With this in mind, Sherlock set about shredding Molly's intentions—using her best wrapped gift as his evidence as his hurt poured into his words. It went splendidly and he was feeling quite refreshed on having vented his frustration at Molly and her unknown beau when he actually read the card attached to the small package. If he'd had anything to eat or drink that day, Sherlock would have had to choke back vomit. As it stood he had a good bit of trouble resisting the urge to retch.

That wasn't the worst of it, either.

Because Molly was standing up for herself and speaking into words his horrid behavior to her. To everyone. Sherlock had never wanted to take words back more than he had during that long pause before he apologized to her. He had to apologize to her, because if she did care for him as he'd deduced she cared for the receiver of the box in his hands then things had to be right. He had to make it better—and he was going to, right up until The Woman made this evening go from terrible to nightmarish in seconds.

Strangely enough, he realized when he got the call from his brother that The Woman's body had been found, he was glad.

He was glad she was dead, because then she might stop invading everything that kept him sane. His work, his phone, his _dreams_. She would never have the chance to ruin Molly Hooper. At least, she would never have the chance to ruin Molly more than he already had.

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	12. Chapter 12

Sorry for no updates. Life happened. Again.

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If he believed for one second (and he had believed for much, much longer than one second, really) that Irene Adler wouldn't have the chance to ruin Molly more than _he_ had already he had another thing coming. Quite another thing entirely. The mobile in the box told that story well enough, he realized in the days following that night.

Molly didn't have any other family, and had prettied herself up for John's party because it was the only thing she was looking forward to. She had stayed for a little while after he'd shut himself in his room—he had heard her hesitant laughter, like it wasn't alright for her to have fun after being humiliated in such a way. She had gone home when Mrs. Hudson had suggested they take a group photo, and must have gotten the call to head to Barts shortly after she'd arrived home and gotten ready for bed.

When she had been there, just meters away, Sherlock hadn't known anything to say to her, any way to fully show his remorse over his behavior. He had stayed—had _hidden_—in his room for the duration of the party. John had made some excuse that a promising case had fallen through, and _don't we all know how Sherlock gets about his cases._ There was laughter after that and the sound of a clinking glass as someone congratulated him for his wit.

Oh it was all very witty, Sherlock decided as he realized that Molly was the only person Barts could have _possibly_ called in on such late notice on such a night. It was all very witty to someone _not_ himself, and when he found said _someone_ he wasn't at all sure he wouldn't strangle them. It certainly wasn't Irene Adler, however, because she was thoroughly dead.

As were his hopes of being able to say he'd waited for Molly to grieve her dead lover and hadn't pursued anyone in the interim. Even he knew how this looked and he couldn't stand it. Instead, Sherlock turned on his heel after identifying Irene and stalked out of Molly's mortuary. She wasn't exactly the crying type, but he didn't want to stick around and see if the dead woman under the sheet was this evening's tipping point for her.

For the next _year_ Irene kept interfering in his life, and Molly kept being around to see it somehow. He told himself to give it up, to just _work_ rather than try and explain himself. Molly seemed to be moving on and seeing people and it was time he did the same. To distract himself, Sherlock decided to try in actual earnest to quit smoking, and avoid Molly's morgue.

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